Laser-Packing Robotic Vacuums That Work Like Google’s Driverless Cars

Laser-guided cleaning machine. Photo: Neato

The robotic vacuum is still the closest thing we have to the Jetson’s robo-maid Rosie. Sure, the vacuums lack the sassy demeanor of the future family’s robo-servent, but they get the floor clean. Mostly. After smashing into the wall about 400 times.

The new line of Neato Robotics BotVac vacuums continue the automated vacuuming of your house. But instead of repeatedly bumping into walls, chairs, tables, and lazy cats, the tiny robots rely on lasers to map your house. Using the same SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) laser technology found in Google’s driverless cars, the BotVacs lasers constantly track 12 to 15 feet in front of the vacuum to create a cleaning path. This leads to a more uniform back-and-forth cleaning of your floor, according to Neato.

Instead of the ever-expanding spiral pattern of the Roomba vacuums, the BotVac maps out the room and cleans along a traditional grid going back and forth. Like the Roomba, the BotVac will return to its charging station once the battery is nearly depleted. Unlike the Roomba, once it’s charged, it will return to were it left off and continue sucking up dirt.

The new Neato BotVac robot vacuums have a larger capacity filth bin, longer battery life, and better brushes over the current generation. The tiny suckers are priced at $480 for the budget BotVac 70e model and $600 for the top-of-the-line BotVac 85, with better brushes and particle filters. The robots will ship in April.